Night Road
by boombangZOOM
Summary: I don't know why he keeps trying. In a world overrun with cannibals the chances of Vergil surviving are zero to none. Maybe Dante just needs to accept that his brother is dead.  AU, rated M for a reason
1. Chapter 1

The wind is so cold it hurts, but I can't stop now. I have to eat _something_.

My fingers wont stop shaking as I stuff fistfuls of the food into my mouth. Everything is dry, flavorless, half-chewed when I begin to swallow. But now isn't the time to be picky. I haven't eaten since last Tuesday – or what I believed to be last Tuesday. It's so easy to lose track of the days now.

My knees are numb from the snow when I turn and lock my gaze onto the assassin just in time to see him smirk, draw a serrated blade from his coat and launch it into a cannibal's chest. It shrieked a sound foreign to my ears and bubbled into dust.

My thoughts are too foggy with hunger to realize what a suicidal idea this is. The only logical thing it _can_ formulate at this point in time is that I will die if I don't eat right here, right now. And at least a bullet to the head would be a much more desirable death as opposed to starving to death underneath layers of snow.

Tinted blood thick enough to be considered goo slaps onto the white snow, only to dissolve at the touch of such a holy shade of white. A drop of the substance is coughed up in the process and lands on my arm.

Seeing it burn a hole through my skin sends me over the edge. My eyes triple in size as I shriek and drag my twitching left arm up and down the snow, staining it black. At first the contact makes my arm spasm and sizzle farther before eventually calming and dulling down into a soothing numbness.

Then everything falls silent aside from the heaviness of my breathing. The loud screeches from the cannibals are gone, and the barely audible crunches of snow beneath boots disappear. There's a sudden shift of wind, followed by the icy feel of the barrel of a gun forced up against my forehead.

Directly in my view is the handle, pale fingers wrapped securely around them. My heartbeat races as the gun then shifts to underneath my chin, tilting my head up.

My eyes lock with those of cerulean. My breathing stops altogether as my head is tilted left and right, up and down. Why he's doing this is no mystery. It isn't to offend me, a silent way of calling me abnormal-looking. He's checking to see if I'm clean.

Either you are a cannibal or human. There are no 'ifs' 'buts' or 'whats' about it. Once infected with the _cannibalia_ virus, you are one of them. There is no going back, there is no cure. Your forehead becomes rippled with purpling veins and your pupils are enlarged until you're irises are appear nonexistent and it's only a matter of time before you begin losing function of your thoughts and body.

You will begin to fidget. You will hate sitting still. At a week tops, the virus would have dominated all function of you and who you are and have you in the streets running miles on end for human flesh.

And even that, too, is scarce.

If you don't know what you're doing, coming face-to-face with one is suicide. You can't outrun them, period. But say you're good. Say you can run a mile, two, three. Maybe even four. But you _cant_ run forever, and eventually your body will give out on you. Only theirs wont. Cannibals could run double, triple, quadruple even that and wouldn't even be short of breath. You'd have a better chance fighting, but that isn't saying much.

The cold metal disappears, and is replaced with icy fingers pressed against my collarbone. I'm raised by my collar. Before I'm even on my feet, vomit spills out of me. The man recoils in disgust and drops me onto the snow where I continue.

The action was completely involuntary. I didn't feel it coming, there was no wave of nausea. Just a random upchuck that proved my stomach angry with me for denying it food for all this time.

But once I begin, I cannot stop. My throat burns from the acid and the tears being squeezed from my tear ducts quickly become a river.

"Close your eyes," A voice says from behind me. "and hold your breath."

I do, and a few wretches later, it's over. A few tears drip from my chin and onto the snow as I scoop up a handful of the white stuff that escaped the wrath of my vomit and take my chances with cleansing my mouth with it.

There's the sensation of my collar tightening, and before I know it I'm on my feet again. He releases me only when I'm on sturdy feet, watches me shudder. "You okay, kid?"

I give off the vibe that I'm about to puke again, and just as it appears as if I'm about to spill, I snag the mans knife and position it threateningly.

He raises his hands, but does not seem the slightest bit intimidated. In fact, there's a hint of a smirk on his lips. "So much for a friendly banter, I guess."

"Shut up," I demand, but my voice quivers. I've never weld a knife before. "Where are you going?"

"...Where am I going?"

I swallow hard. "You heard me. There's no way you're just wandering in circles. You have to be headed somewhere."

"What's it to you? And- come on, you're not even holding the blade right." He snatches it back before I even have a chance to blink.

I stare at my empty hands, stunned.

"Did you want to tag along, or something?" He studies me, realizes he's hit the mark. "..Forget I ever said that."

"C-Can I-"

"No." He begins assembling his things. "I don't know if I'd be all that okay with bringing along a psycho who tried to kill me."

For whatever reason, that offends me. "It's not like I was going to."

"I figured that."

The snow crunches underneath his boots as he begins to walk off. "What if I didn't try and kill you?"

"Maybe I'd let you tag along, maybe I wouldn't."

I struggle to keep up as I lock my eyes on the back of his head, his hair whiter than the snow. "Well. . . I'm sorry."

He stops suddenly and I smack into his chest. I can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, "Keep talking."

**"My body is numb from the cold,**

**but I do my very best to ignore it."**

After a very lengthy and descriptive apology along with calling myself a series of childish names, I was forgiven. He told me his name was Dante, and I told him mine was Megan. But directly after the introductions, he thoroughly explained to me that if I ever ransacked through his food again, I'd be sporting a new bullet in my head.

I kick a can laying randomly in the void lot. Random sheets of paper struggle to keep it's place on the charcoal ground, only to billow across the gray sky, following the harsh wind. It bothers me how Dante walks so closely to the cars that appeared to be rundown for ages when it was so blaringly obvious that I am afraid of them. (He wouldn't listen when I told him I saw movement within one) But I swear, he does it solely to annoy me.

I glance up at name of the storefront."Whalemart," I read aloud.

Dante rolls his eyes. "Walmart."

Huh. Well I don't like Walmart. It appears empty and dark, and barely anything is visible though the cracked windows. But Dante doesn't care, apparently, and jams a knife almost long enough to be considered a sword between the two slide-in doors, forcing them open. He squeezes through the small space, and makes a motion for me to follow him when I don't.

I cling to his arm when we're inside the darkness. He shoves me off.

Then there's a shift of wind, and he's gone.

For a moment I'm blind, then a gentle _click _ is echoing throughout the vast space, followed by lights, row-by-row, gleaming to life. I feel a large hand rest itself on my shoulder, the other nudging me on with the butt of a gun. "Jeez," he mutters.

The place is wrecked, and a good half of the lights were flickering wildly, threatening failure. Clothes racks were scattered randomly on the dirty tile, completely void of, well, clothes. Wires hung from the ceiling, sparks flying from the end of their torn cords. There are two levels to this store, upstairs and downstairs. Simple. The lights on the second floor refused to turn on, and I figure it best not to go and explore.

"Here we are." He sighs, standing directly in front of what remained of the food aisle. "Lets see what's left."

There isn't much. For an aisle labeled BREAD/PASTURIES it seems a little, well...lacking. We come across half of a loaf of bread that has been torn in half by human hands, a box of cereal that is verging emptiness. That is all we take, because that is all that's left.

Similar stories with aisles 1-8. Labels that tell stories of food and refreshment, only to heavily disappoint. We've already made an all-around trip of the first floor in less than ten minutes, and our cart is hardly a quarter full.

Now back at the front of the shop, Dante observes the second floor with an aura of promise.

I roll my eyes. "Dante, it isn't worth it."

"Oh c'mon."

I'm standing at the edge of the stairs leading to the second floor, cart in hand, watching as Dante jogs up the steps two at a time. The stairs lead to a hallway that stretches across the mall, but laying firmly against the extending wall is something blue and luminescent – a vending machine.

I give an irritated sigh, slowly making my way up the steps to join him. Once at the top, I carefully avoid a rippled arm laying randomly on the tile. "Oh yeah, what could possibly go wrong." I say sarcastically, joining Dante by the machine.

I sigh. "Can we please leave? I doubt you have any-"

He slips a dollar from his wallet and waggles it in my face. I groan.

He slips in the dollar.

Seconds pass, and the machine spits it back out.

He pushes it back in.

The dollar juts out.

He sighs dramatically, straightens the dollar against the edge of the machine, and slides it back in.

The bill sticks out stubbornly.

"Oh wow," I mutter, quickly making way to the shopping cart at the bottom of the stairs.

I stumble and nearly trip upon hearing a loud crash, and turn to see the vending machine cut clean in half and dripping with soda. Dante reaches in, grabs a soda, and catches up to me in a few strides. "Here," he says upon reaching me.

We're at the bottom of the stairs when I give him a funny look, then stare at the drink firmly grasped in his hand.

His pale fingers tug at the pop-top, and a strange liquid sprays into the air, followed by a light tan substance bubbling and slightly overflowing the newly-made hole. My eyes widen and I take a step back. "Is that safe to drink?" Before his passing, Dad had told me stories about soda, most of them being how great it taste. I can't say I have the slightest clue what he was talking about. But this, this looks like _acid_.

He gives me a look, and presses the rim of the cool can against my bottom lip.

I furrow my brows and take a sip, only to spit it back out onto the tile. It tastes sour and bitter and sugary and- and I don't know what else. All I know is that it is possibly the worst liquid combination known to man, and that my mouth is probably overflowing with bubbles created by the drink and my own saliva.

I force down the soda that hid stubbornly in the corners in my mouth with difficulty.

Dante gives me a long stare. "How could you **not **like soda," he moans, snatching the beverage from my hands.

I burp and swipe at the corner of my mouth with my sleeve.

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I'm dead tired and the soles of my feet are aching, but I don't tell Dante this. Truth be told, the concrete feels as if it will crumble beneath my feet and, even with Dante walking beside me, I don't feel the slightest bit safe traveling on it. But then again, it's either this, or take our chance with the monsters down below.

Dante had told me to remain silent when we took our first steps onto the highway. I asked why, and he explained that there were cannibals beneath us. Hoards of them. I didn't want to believe him at first, but now that we are actually walking the distance on the lengthy road, I can actually hear them; their meaningless shouting, their feet colliding with the dirt below them as they ran at their inhuman speeds.

I look over the ledge and my stomach does a flip-flop. The cannibals were grouping together, making way towards something behind a ruined car with a menacing swagger – like a pack of wolves intimidating a prey in plain sight. They are cornering something, no, people – a mother and a daughter. The next few events fly by in a blur. The cannibals are on them in seconds, and my stiff legs melt down into jello upon hearing the female scream, followed by the cry of her small child. The mother is torn from the girl and is quickly engulfed in mouths as they tear off chunks of her skin.

The child's screams are silenced by a knife to her head. She falls to the ground, unmoving.

My pace stops altogether as the mother's cries increase, and the nerve-wrecking sound of flesh being torn rips through my ears like a blade. My features run pale as the mother lay limp, blood gushing from her torn open chest and spurting from her now missing arm. I look away, grimacing. Dante grips my arm and tugs me away, telling me to cover my ears, but I don't listen. I focus on the sound of the terribly unfortunate human below us as she suffers the worst possible death there is, being eaten alive.

I kneel over and heave up my stomach's remains.

I hear the heavy thud of footfalls, followed by a pair of dark boots planting themselves beside me. "I'm surprised you aren't used to that yet," I hear Dante say. I feel myself being lifted and placed onto cold metal that crisscrossed beneath my bottom. "I'm sure they don't want to be helped at this point," he silences the plea ringing in my thoughts.

He's right. The woman is probably torn to pieces by now, and he and I both know she is still _alive_, but has lost the will to scream. "...Why don't they kill them first," I think out loud. I shift uncomfortably against the food placed randomly in the cart, awaiting Dante's reply.

There is none.


	2. Chapter 2

**Originally, this was just going to be random writing. I didn't plan on publishing this onto fanfiction at all, so I don't really want any flames. If you don't like it, tell me why, but be nice. Please. This story is pretty AU, but Dante wont be bagging groceries at Publix or something, don't worry. XD**

**I own nothing other than Megan, could that be any more obvious?**

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_I grabbed a yellow crayon and scribbled on the wall beside the dinning room table. It was hard for me to clearly see the large sun in the center of my drawing. The candle was placed on a really high shelf along with Mom's collection of China plates. It's orange glow didn't reach down to where I was. At least, not enough to see what I was doing._

_I bent over and colored in the green grass just above the tile of the floor. Mom and Dad were arguing again, and I was too young to understand that they were fighting over **me**.What was soon to come. "We should have done this earlier, before she was born," Mom says._

_I took a quick peek at them through the walk-in door leading to the kitchen, only to find Mom leaning against the stove, her dark hair in it's usual messy style. Dad was seated in a chair, face in hands. My eyes switched back to my drawing, and I reached up on my tip-toes, coloring in my sun._

_**BANG**._

I jolt awake, cold sweat running down the back of my neck. I swallow audibly and drag a shaking hand across my forehead, slowly laying back down against the uncomfortable seat.

"You okay?"

I jump at the sound of Dante's voice, then twist slightly in my seat to face him. "Yeah." I pull my jacket tighter around myself. "Just a bad dream."

"Tell me about it."

"You had one too?"

"No." I hear him chuckle. "I literally mean tell me about it. My mom always told me when you don't tell someone about your nightmares, they come true."

"It already came true."

It seems warmer inside the truck we are resting in as opposed to the bitter cold of outside. At first I was skeptical about sleeping in a random abandoned truck on the highway, then out of impatience, Dante reminded me about the scene I unfortunately saw earlier today. How cruel of Dante – I scurried into the front seat before he even finished explaining how horrible it must be to be raped, let alone the horror of being raped while having your chest ripped open.

"Parents?"

I stare at him, and he continues, "My mom died too. As for my Dad..." He then stares at something over my head, eyes losing focus. "he was never...around. You shouldn't cling onto someone that isn't here anymore." He yawns and stretches.

I want to gape at him, but I don't. "Good to know we have something in common," I say bitterly.

He only smirks, resting his head back against the seat.

It must still be late. My eyes are growing heavy again, but I'm afraid to fall asleep, afraid of dreaming about Mom and Dad. Out past the windshield is nothing but the dark sky and stars, shining down on this wrecked world peacefully, mockingly, almost.

I stare at Dante with envy. His blue eyes were closed again, his breathing even, and the left side of his white hair was mashed against the seat of the truck. How can sleeping come so easy to him?

"**Out past the windshield is nothing but the dark sky and stars,**

**shining down on this wrecked world peacefully,**

**mockingly, almost."**

"Are you infected?" I ask from inside the cart as Dante pushes me and our food down the bumpy concrete.

Small fluffs of white of white are falling from the gray sky. It isn't until I catch a small pile in my hand do I notice the hint to black to them – Ash.

"No." The forest to either side of the road is covered with the ashy snow. Directly in front of us is a dark tunnel. The inside seems completely black, with no trace of light on the other side. At first, I wanted to question his sanity when I discovered we are actually going _inside_ that thing. Then I played a re-run of his abilities in my mind. "My mom was human, and my Dad was a demon. I'm sure I don't need to explain any further."

I nod and fall silent again. I lean against a cereal box and sigh, listening to the rhythmic crunch of the snow beneath Dante's boots and the squeak of the cart's wheels as it struggled to stay steady on the slippery road.

I'm about to ask him if he'd prefer me walking when the sound of artificial humming interrupts me. I slip out of the cart and stiffen upon hearing the sound of a sputtering engine emitting from the tunnel.

"Shit." Dante mutters, dragging the cart behind a barrage of bushes leading to the forest."Get over here," He orders once securely hidden by a tree.

I'm about to question him when the blaring sound of a horn is heard, followed by a blinding light, no, a _pair_ of blinding lights shining from inside the tunnel. I hear them next, the cannibals laughing and screaming, some singing even.

My legs melt down into jello, my heart leaping higher and higher into my throat with every beat. My body has never felt so numb, so immobile. The hood of an ugly truck slowly sputters into view as the truck slowly makes it way out of the tunnel. I feel a large hand on my shoulder, and is yanked behind a bush.

The next thing I see is Dante, furious and red faced. "Are you out of your fucking mind!" He hisses at me, but I ignore him, waiting for feeling to seep back into me. I shove him off of me, hiding stiffly against the bark of a tree.

I nearly lose my balance. The forest seems flat on the road, but it is actually a steep downward slope. Behind us lays a river greened by toxins and chemicals. I grip onto a tree a tree to refrain from falling backwards while Dante flattens out on his stomach, peeping silently over the grass as a truck pulls into view. He pulls out a gun.

Blood drains from my face as they all flood out of the beat-up truck. It's obvious that they are cannibals, I can see the thick purple veins pulsating from their temple to the back of their necks, the lack of focus and sanity in their eyes.

They're barbaric, all of them.

One who is clothed in nothing more than a large dirty shirt and jeans forcefully lifts the hood of the truck, nearly tearing it from it's gears. Another hobbles over to help him. He's missing one arm, and half of another – both look horribly infected.

A really slender male, slender enough to resemble a twig, struts his way towards us.

The cannibal doesn't notice Dante and I, and pulls down his zipper, and urinates the bush dangerously close to me. I suppress a gag and shift slowly to the right. I don't know if you can catch their disease through urine, but being peed on isn't exactly on my bucket list.

Terrible mistake. His lanky neck cranes our way, his crazed eyes squinting, focusing on me the best they could. I look up at him with fearful eyes that soon switch to ones of confusion upon seeing the towering male stiffen. "Get over here." I hear Dante say, then glance at him to see him waggling a finger at the cannibal in a 'come here' motion. In his other hand, a black gun was aiming at the opposing male.

The cannibal nods, fast and hard, kneeling down and crawling over to where Dante was laying. "Don't turn around." He orders when the lanky man attempts to look over his shoulder. "Make a sound and I'll blow your brains out."

The cannibal keeps his ground for a few short moments, a frustrated expression scribbled clear across his face. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to process the few short words Dante had said. Cannibals may be fast, but they are relatively unintelligent. Their only form of thinking is based off of instinct and hunger. There is no second thoughts with them. Being caught in plain view of a cannibal is similar to dangling raw meat in front of a lion.

He flops ungracefully onto the icy grass beside Dante.

Almost immediately, I gag at his wretched scent – human blood and sweat. Dante just looks how he normally does. I place a hand over my mouth and suppress a gag. My heart rate slows, even if only by a fraction, and I peek around the bark for any signs of the monsters leaving.

I give an odd cry at the feeling of something icy and bony, fingers, wrapping themselves around my ankles. I call out to Dante in panic but I'm already being dragged by my feet up the moist, snowy moss and onto the hard concrete of the road.

It all seems to happen in slow motion. The hand hoists me up and I'm dangling upside down, my dark hair piling onto the rough concrete of the street. Then I smell them, the cannibals as they encircled me. I see them next, their ugly faces, their putrid scars, their pulsating veins. I was mere meat to them.

I try to look for Dante, but all I see is a barrage of feet and ankles as I'm spun around – as they encircle me.

**BANG.**

I fall onto the concrete head first, moaning from the impact. I see the cannibal's hand next, bloody and connected to nothing other than my ankle. I'm shaking too hard to kick it off. The sound of gun fire and screams of agony are ringing in my ears. Blood splatters all over me – a dark shade of red by not yet black. It smells worse than the cannibals.

Then everything stops, and I know the cannibals are dead, and I know I'm covered in their blood, and I know I seem pretty fucking close to useless. A pair of icy fingers hoist be up by my collar, but only this time, I'm not afraid of Dante.

"**They're barbaric,**

**all of them."**

He lays me down by the river, pulling off my blood-stained sweater. He shrugs off his coat and hands it to me. "There's blood all over your face," He says.

I bend over the river, studying my reflection in the green contaminated water. He's right, my face is splattered with crimson and the left side of my hair is caked with the fluid. I take in a guff of air and stick my head under water, slowly massaging the substance from my face and hair.

The water is icy and I suppress the panic instinct upon the water's unpleasant chill. After a few seconds of being submerged, my face begins to burn due to the chemicals. I pull out, staring back at myself in the river once completed wiping the water from my eyes. I nearly gape at how...different I look. I hadn't gotten prettier or magically obtained perfect features, I just look older. My skin looks a lot lighter, resembling a light caramel color opposed to it's previous light brown. That doesn't surprise me, my skin hasn't touched the sun in over seven years.

My eyes look exactly the same; brown and bigger than they should be. If this hadn't been my first time looking at myself in nearly a decade, I would have defined myself as ordinary.

The cold hits me like a slap in the face the second I look away from my reflection. I quickly pull on Dante's coat, shuddering at the sudden warmth.

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**Meh, short chapter, I know.**

**-Shrug-**

**The ones in the future will be longer though, you have my word.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Resident Evil : After Life is officially the bestest (yes, best_est_) movie ever. If you haven't watched it yet, watch it. _Nao_. C:**

**BAHHHHH sorry for the long wait. DX  
****For lack of better words, this chapter was a complete _bitch_, and to be honest, I'm still not pleased with the way this one turned out. ; - ; Sorry if you come across any blaringly obvious grammatical errors or typos. The person who betas my story is always busy nowadays, and just doesn't have the time to proof read my chapters anymore. So, if anyone finds this chapter, you know, horrible, just mention it in a review and I'll be more than happy to take it down and further work on it. oAo**

** I had planned on getting this out by Friday, but things don't always go as planned, y'know. Anyhow, yes this is AU blah blah blah Dante wont be bagging groceries blah blah blah I don't want any flames blah blah blah OKAY NAO. :3**

**OH. OH OH OH. Thanks for the reviews guys. x3 I notice everyone is adding some type of warning to their chapters when necessary, and I feel like putting one too. Soooo, warning : gore.**

**-Feels accomplished-**

**I own nothing other than Megan, could that be any more obvious?**

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I think Dante's mad at me, but to be completely honest, I don't really care. It's not like it's _my _fault. He has the worst habit of running hot and cold, leaving me with more questions bubbling on my tongue than before. But then again, it's hard not to question him. He has just about the oddest searching methods, and his form of 'logic' really doesn't make any sense. Not being curious about them is nearly impossible. At least, I think so.

A bitter wind stings my cheeks, landing specks of white and black in my hair. I try to massage them out as I stuff my hands into the pockets of Dante's coat, walking stiffly in the ankle-deep snow. Now that I think of it, my feet are probably a lovely shade of blue by now. But I don't care. I'm used to colds and flus and fevers.

Dante swings his legs over the dark picket fence squaring the perimeter of the small field. He had hidden our cart in a bush, an obvious hiding spot for human, but impossible for an idiot such as a cannibal to locate. "What month is it?" I ask upon him reaching me.

I notice the gentle color of red tainting the tip of his nose. I make sure not to stare. "November," He says flatly.

I ignore his tone of voice, along with the way the slick snow is seeping into the small openings in my converse as I struggle to keep up with his quick strides. "Do you know the date?"

"Yeah, of course, 'cause I'm a walking calendar."

I swipe at my nose with the back of my hand. "Try?"

He sighs in irritation. "The...eleventh."

I fall silent with an, "Oh." dropping my gaze to my snow-covered shoes.

I find myself wondering if I'll ever wind up having to get my feet amputated when he finally asks, "Why?"

I hesitate for a moment. I know he doesn't care, but I glance up at him anyway. "My birthday was last month," I explain softly.

Dante says nothing more – I knew he wouldn't care. He slows his strides to a stop before crimson doors criss-crossed with white wood. They are ugly, covered with splinters and aged wood slightly grayed by the ash. I take in a gulp of dry air, ignoring the way it scraped my already sore throat. "The barn, really?" My voice cracks mid-sentence when Dante jams his sword into the small space between the two doors with his usual nonchalant attitude.

He doesn't reply, and forces the doors open with a grunt, carelessly stalking inside. I follow close behind, gripping onto the back of his dark sweater. He shrugs me off.

For a slit second, the split second I spent holding onto Dante, I thought I was blind. My vision had amounted to zero upon facing the pitch black must have been settled in this barn for so long, so accustomed to just..._laying _there, it had no choice but to struggle against the gray light that spilled in through the doors of the barn.

"So.." I hesitate, my voice echoing in the vast space. "What are you looking for?" I ask, nervously rubbing my arms.

Dante is silent for a moment, then shrugs and begins rummaging around the barn with the help of the light seeping into the vast shed. "For a..." I hear the sound of objects – my eyes not as advanced as his to know what – being shifted around, followed by the sight of an unusually colored gun, orange, being waved in the air by Dante's pale hand. "flare gun," He says finally.

I'm shaking my head when the sound of something corrupted with static – a voice, permeates from somewhere beside my sneakers. The voice sounds weird, like it's there but it's not there – like  
listening to someone talk on a radio. Before I can stop myself, I'm on my knees, shifting my way through a pile of hay.

I look up to see Dante, face darkened with shadows, watching me carefully with an emotionless expression, then glance back down to see blue luminescent light seeping through random openings in the hay. My hands shift around for a few more seconds, taking something firm and cube-shaped into my grasp. Luminescent light emits from the screen, casting a blue light onto my knees as it's lifted from the pile. I flip it over and almost immediately become momentarily blinded. "Ugh," I groan. The object slips from my hands while I try to blink away dancing dots of color, doing my best to ignore the sound of Dante's snickers.

_'YOU. WERE SUPPOSED TO EXPLODE. INTO A MILLION TINY PIECES,'_ I hear a cranky voice holler, followed by the sound of boots, Dante's boots, planting themselves beside me.

I'm giving my eyes a few final rubs when the wretched box is taken into Dante's grasp.

_'Why would I do that?'_ Another voice says.

"Do you know what this is?" I hear Dante ask from beside me.

I hear the cranky voice saying, _'BECAUSE THE PIE YOU ATE. WAS A BOMB.'_ when I finally glance up at him, who's skin held a gentle glow from the screen. He grins at me for the first time in, well, for the first time, then refocuses his blue eyes on the object in his grasp. "It's called a T.V.. An extremely...ancient T.V.," He says when I don't reply.

I say nothing, allowing my line of sight to stray over his shoulder, trying to adjust to the darkness of the room. My head lay lazily in my hand as I try to blink away the stubborn dots of blue and white and green as they twirl around my vision, trying make out outlines of objects. Something catches my eye in the far east of the room, and in seconds I'm stumbling over myself trying to figure out what the _hell _it is. There are one, no two objects laying silent and lifelessly against a wall to the far east of the room, completely shrouded in the shadow fought off into the corners. I don't even notice I'm tugging on cloth of Dante's jeans until he mutters, "What?"

I nod my head over too where I'm looking, and he turns, his gaze shifting over to my line of sight.

Dante flips the screen over with ease in his right hand, and, as if it were a flashlight, he aims the screen in the direction of the objects. Almost immediately, I groan, planting my face into the jean of his pants. Hanging from a wooden beam against the wall is an elderly couple, their faces bright blue, their arms dangling lifelessly by their sides. Around their crooked necks is a thick rope. "Holy fucking..." I hear Dante say, and on instinct my eyes snap over to meet his line of sight. "Don't look," He says.

Too late. The bluish light of the T.V. is illuminating their bodies that extended down to their waist, ending exactly there. Hanging from their waist in a bloody, disoriented mess were their intestine and stomach and rest of their insides, darkened with time and temperature and parasites. Their torso's are not bare, but I can see the criss-crosses of torn cloth and flesh, each wound covered with blood browned with age. "My god, these people," Dante's voice struggles to stay steady as the blue light dips lower, illuminating the ground at their feet, which is clattered with various knives dirtied with blood. The couples blood.

Almost instantly I hear a soft thud as the T.V. is dropped to the ground, it's gentle glow illuminating the icy hay, followed by the feeling of Dante's hand swallowing mine, tugging me towards the exit in which we came.

We're at the foot of the doors and the gray sky suddenly seemed a bit too bight at the foot of the exit – like criminals caught in the dead center of security lights. I shield my eyes with a shaking hand, then lower it to see a truck crashing through the picket fence, sending random pieces of brown wood across the snow. Feeling seeps from my legs again as I stand there, as **we** stand there, watching as cannibals pull into view.

My body is completely numb when Dante tugs at my hand again – harder this time, rushing towards the exit on the other side of the barn. There are too many of them. Knowing Dante, he could only handle so much. And a truck as large as that filled to the brim with cannibals along with a vulnerable female such as myself in plain sight was not one of them.

My feet are colliding with the ground again, my puny hand shaking in Dante's as he shoves open the other set of large doors open, obviously relieved not to see another another truck-full of cannibals parked in our view again.

My heart is in my throat as we run, too terrified to glance behind me. I struggle to keep up with Dante as we speed towards the snow-covered forest that seems _so far away. _My feet choose to resemble cement in the worst of times – lifting them from the bitter snow becomes a challenge in itself. My chest aches with every intake of icy air when we finally settle behind a tree with bark darkened with the bitter cold and ash.

Then I hear pants, not mine, nor Dante's. The breaths are shorter, softer. One appropriate for a child.

I peek around the tree, only to see a little boy, no older than seven, being chased by the cannibals – the monsters. He looks pained and is holding his side. His limp is obvious, and so is the fact that his small body will give out on him soon.

Dante is already on his feet, yanking me up onto mine by the back of my collar, like a child would to it's kitten, preparing for another wretched dash. But suddenly the boy isn't on the ground anymore, and is instead dangling helplessly upside down with a rope secured around his ankle.

I watch in horror as he struggles to no avail, his every cry striking a deeper cord inside of me. My stomach twists into knots upon seeing the cannibals encircle him – their prey, with their usual swagger.

My eyes fly over to Dante. "You need to help them," I hiss.

He gives me a look, obviously questioning my sanity. "I don't think so." He tugs on my arm again, but I smack it away, holding my ground.

"_Help him,_ Dante."

"He could be infected."

"And if he's not?"

Dante just stares at me as if I'm the biggest idiot on the face of the earth. My brown eyes fly over to the small boy, watching as they sliced through the rope with a single swipe of a blade, laughing at the child as he fell head first into the snow. His puny arms are bound behind his back, his chest heaving. I feel tears of frustration stinging my eyes. "Please?"

A tall, balding man shoves his way through the crowd, his shining head criss-crossed with lavender veins. "We'll make you a deal, little man." He voice is deep and smooth but his movements are not. He tosses a pocket knife into the air, catching it, but barely. "You gauge out your eyes, we leave you alone."

I watch as his lips twist into a smile, his teeth black and in desperate need of cleansing. I swallow the lump raising in my throat – never have I felt this useless. I look away from the boy and up at Dante, giving him the most pleading look I can manage through eyes blurry with tears.

Dante stiffens, eyes shifting back and forth between the forest and the child. "_Are you-_" He doesn't finish, grabbing fistfuls of hair. Dante and I both wince as a ground breaking scream erupts from the boy, followed by a fit of cries. Neither I nor Dante look at the child. We don't need to look to know he is in agony, to know his face is caked with crimson. I feel something building up inside me, raising higher and higher until I feel it peaking into my throat.

At first I think I'm about to vomit, but the strange pressure peaks higher - into my head, only to escape as a useless tear. I try and swipe it away, before Dante could see, but more wetness slides down my cheeks, plopping down onto the leather of Dante's coat. I raise my knees, wrapping my shaking arms around them. Dante's coat quickly becomes slippery with tears as he attempts to console me. I shove him off.

He swears.

The cold bites at my shoulder as the coat slides down my arm. I remain motionless, immobile to Dante and the world aside my from clenching fists. Maybe if I don't move for a long enough period of time, I can trick him into thinking this is some sort of threat. A threat that I'll never move again, I'll just freeze and die here, if he doesn't do anything. Maybe I will.

My plan fails when I jump at the sound of gunfire. I glance up, but Dante isn't there. A feeling of relief creeps into my chest. So much, I can almost ignore the sounds of agony ripping through the cannibal's throats. I swipe away tears with the back of my hands, peeking around the bark just in time to see one of their heads being detached, their dark blood drenching Dante's sword.

"...**his form of 'logic'**

**really doesn't make any sense****."**

Dante tears a strip of cloth from his undershirt, tying it securely around the little boy's head and eye. I'm holding him in my arms, the child, soothingly running my fingers through his black hair. His still sobbing, and his left eye is bleeding profusely. I'm still furious at Dante for not saving him sooner. If he would have helped the child when I first asked him to as opposed to standing beside me like an _idiot_, this wouldn't have happened. I don't let it show, though. Taking down that many cannibals isn't something I would want to do either.

When the child's sobs finally cease, I release him, smoothing back his soft hair. I ease him off of me, reaching out my arms and attacking Dante in a hug. His arms are outstretched in an awkward position, as if questioning what to do next. "Thanks." I mutter into his shoulder in lack of better words.

His arms don't close in on my frame. Whatever, it's a start.

"What's your name, kid?" Dante asks, then quickly pushes me off of him.

I quickly shake off the sudden rejection, and crane my neck to face the boy when he doesn't reply. "I don't know." He says finally.

"You don't know your own name?" I say, tapping my chin. "Well..we'll call you..."

"Gordon!" Dante offers.

"Ew." I grimace at him. "Gordon is a horrible name. What about Brandon?" I offer, my eyes connecting with the small boy's gray one.

"How could you call a name like Gordon horrible and then offer a name like that?" Dante stands, gripping the icy handle of our cart. "How about...Felix. Xavier? No, Carlo!"

I help the boy up, giving Dante a stare. "..You mean Carlos."

"No. Carlo."

"Dante, what kind of name is Carlo?"

"A cool one."

"...I like Carlo," The boy says.

"Your name will _not_ be Carlo." I say through gritted teeth, lifting him and placing him down gently in my reserved spot of the cart.

"He wants to be named Carlo."

"We aren't naming him Carlo." I whine.

"All in favor of naming the child Carlo." The boy's hand shoots into the air, followed by Dante's.

* * *

When my Dad was still around, he would tell me stories about how things used to be, filling me with hopes of better days and better people. I hate him for it. Not a single word he said brought back one of my friends from their graves. Not a word he said made the sun peak out from behind the clouds, completing it's seven year rest. Not a word raised the temperature, not even a degree. Not a word cleared the ash. Not a word cured them. Not a word made things better, made people better.

What it did was make me wait days on end for the sun, the sun that would never arise from it's sleep, to shoot it's yellow rays across the sky, making it blue again. It made me believe that people would be good again, and stop tearing one another apart. It made me believe there was hope. Well there isn't any.

I remember the way my blood boiled upon staring down at Dad's corpse through the thin light of the kitchen candle, a bullet landed firmly in his forehead. I remember the days I spent laying by his body, his unmoving body, thinking he'll wake up, because he made me believe in things like that. He had given me so much hope, told me so many lies, making me believe that someone can actually come back after dieing. How stupid of me._  
_

My eyes slide open to stare at an orange fire as it rages and licks at the crisp air a mere foot away from my current position. I prop myself up on my elbow and poke it with a stick.

I hear a soft _click_, and glance up to see Dante sitting cross-legged on the icy grass, mingling with a silver revolver. It wasn't easy – finding this place, I mean. Any clear, flat area we found was either covered with massive sheets of white, had a huge fucking downward slope that would have us waking up to tumbling into a river bank, or out in the open just begging for us to be eaten in our sleep.

To make matters worse, Carlo's eye kept bleeding, which was also a time consuming burden. Every few minutes, Dante would have to remove the strip of clothing covering his empty eye socket drenched in crimson, only to replace it with another strip that would have to be tossed aside and replaced in soon time.

Even now, his eye is _still_ bleeding. Carlo's head lay delicately on his dark jacket, his chest rising and falling with a solid rhythm, his right hand cupping his missing eye even in his sleep. He's a tough kid, to say the least. Even with the trauma of losing an eye, the kid still carries the will to keep going, to keep living.

I feel the urge to dab at his bleeding eye, then suppress it. I'm too afraid to hurt him.

I don't as much as flinch when something nudges me, and turn only to see a can of Dole staring me in the face. "Want some?" Dante's familiar voice asks from behind the can.

I shake my head no. "Remember what happened last time you offered me something to drink?" I ask flatly.

I hear him chuckle, then look up to see solid silver staring me in the face. At first I think he is aiming the gun at me, just as he had the first time we met. But his finger is nowhere near the trigger now, and Dante's expression isn't one of intimidation. "Take it," He says when I remain immobile.

I obey, taking the weapon into my hand with difficulty. It feels uncomfortable against my palm, and it's surprisingly heavy weight catches me off guard. I set it on the grass, rejecting it. "I know nothing about those things, let alone know how to shoot one," I say in a bland tone.

"You don't need to," Dante says, taking the revolver into his hand, and scooting over to me. "All you need is fear, courage, and fingers."

I give him a stare. "What?"

He shifts the gun into his left hand, opens my mouth with the right, and places the tip of the barrel inside. He suddenly tips the gun back in a quick motion, imitating gunfire. He places the gun back on the slick grass. "I'm not always going to be there to protect you, Megan."

_'And when you're not, you want me to kill myself?' _I think bitterly. Despite my thoughts, I curl my legs up to my chest, watching as the darkness of the night slowly fades into a lighter shade of gray. It will be morning soon.

"I'm doing this out of...," He stops for a second, but doesn't finish. Instead he says,"I don't want you to be ripped to shreds alive."

I grunt in understanding, resting my cheek against my knees.

* * *

**Wow. This chapter is a lot longer than I expected it to be. -_-''**


	4. Chapter 4

**Right, well here is the fourth chapter. Sorry for such a long wait...again. With projects and exams and other fanfictions I'm currently working on, this story kind of slipped off of my To-Do list. **

**Once again, this story is AU, but Dante will remain his usual bad-ass self. Obviously.**

**Annnd, I own nothing other than Megan and Carlo.**

* * *

For a second, Dante had had me there. I had actually come to believe that he was some sort of machine that runs off of me and Carlo's misery, but apparently that isn't the case. Because right now, as I stare at him completely knocked out on the mattress that seems so puny under his built figure, it's obvious that even he, too, gets exhausted.

At first, when he had first began his slumber I mean, I had wanted to ask if he was alright with Carlo and I going outside, out of this cramped apartment complex. Although this place would be considered luxury compared to all of the other demolished buildings I have come across, (which isn't saying very much, but..) he and I quickly grew bored of staring at Dante's unmoving, sleeping body.

Carlo doesn't cease dragging his toy car across a desktop when I stand, make my way over to the mattress, and peek out of the window. I'm cautious not to drive me knees into Dante's limp legs as opposed to the mattress as I scan the streets, finding no signs of life. Or demons, I guess I should add.

Fair enough. As I lean off of his bed and grab my revolver, I think about how I really should get his approval on this. I have this vague feeling that he'll tear me to shreds if he wakes up to find me and Carlo gone. But I doubt that will be anytime soon. The occasional twitch of his eyebrows and mumbles in his sleep are the only signs of life proving he isn't dead.

But, just to be safe, I push his weapons just a bit closer to his limp body before Carlo and I leave.

"**I have this vague feeling that**

**he'll tear me to shreds if he wakes up to find me and Carlo gone."**

"How's your eye feeling?" I ask, stretching. I must have become immune to the freezing weather, because when the two of us step outside, barely notice the way the bitter wind stings my cheeks.

It's been weeks since he was left no choice but to gauge the thing out, and, even with just my recalling of that horrific event, I squeeze his hand just a bit tighter. For a while, Carlo's condition undoubtedly slowed us down. It wasn't so much his moans in pain that would keep me up at night, (Dante would never seemed to notice) but the fact that his empty eye socket was always _bleeding,_ and he could never do so much as cry about it. Not unless he wanted his socket to burn.

"My what- oh..," he says in realization, raising a hand to the bandaged hole. "I forgot about that."

After a few more seconds of silence, Carlo and I part; him to a street pole to climb, and me to the hood of a car. Today is Wednesday, a school day for my friends and I seven years ago if I'm not mistaken. Now that it crosses my mind, I realize I haven't thought about school in a while. But to be honest, I don't remember very much about it other than the fact that I only had about two friends – Ugh, I cant even remember their names. But I believe there was always this one blond kid that you could almost always catch me with. His face was a gentle shade of cream and was framed by a head of golden hair scissored down into it's usual bowl cut.

_He almost resembles Carlo,_ I think as I watch the boy dangle from the street sign, obviously wondering just how the hell he was going to get down. But minus the black hair and missing eye and skin rendered pale from such a huge blood loss.

But it isn't fair to compare the two of them. Jason – Ah, there's his name! – wasn't abandoned by his parents, or, whatever happened to Carlo's guardians that rendered him alone. Jason didn't have to live off of outdated foods and drinks and had the privilege of knowing his _own name._

But, then again, he's probably dead. So once again, this world has balanced things out in it's sick way.

"Megan, can you help?" He asks, dangling from the pole.

For a second, I think about leaving him there for a minute, just to savor the adorable scene; his short jeaned legs kicking in impatience, his eyebrow furrowing and tongue jutting out in obvious frustration, like he is willing his legs to grow, and they refused.

"Uh, here. Just- hold on, okay. I've got you." I sigh and catch Carlo's smaller frame with ease, expecting him to take off towards the pole and climb it once again, which is what he usually does with trees and Dante.

But, instead, he makes way down the street, his puny figure slipping past me with ease. I don't even have the opportunity to chase after him, because after a measly seven or so steps, he dives onto the concrete, appearing to pull something into a choking grasp.

If I didn't have a bad-assed companion at my service a couple stories away, (even though that 'companion' would most likely bite my face off to wake up to this fantastic situation) I'd probably go berserk and yank Carlo up by the collar and scold him as a mother would, saying things like 'No,' and 'bad boy,' or 'that thing could eat you.'

But as I take advantage of the unusual feeling of calm that rarely houses itself within me, I zero in on the...furry creature in his grasp.

_Oh, hell._

I quirk a brow, drawing nearer to the boy seated criss-legged style on the filthy ground. "Carlo?" He turns, his arms tightening themselves around the animal struggling in his death-like grip. "What is that?" I don't realize I had drawn the revolver until I feel my fingers flexing themselves on the handle.

He whips his body and the creature around, turning to face me. I make a strange strangled cry in the back of my throat, snapping my eyes shut and craning my neck away from the two. No, I did not catch as much as a glimpse as to what the _gullible_ boy was clinging to, but I can tell you what I expect. Maybe he's carrying some sort of shrunken head that he, for whatever reason, finds fascinating. Or maybe a demon's leg with it's parasites bubbling on it's torn flesh. Or, even better, a baby cannibal chewing his arms off.

"Meow?" The sound slices through my thoughts like butter, silencing them immediately.

My brown eyes slide open to see an animal – a cat – held up by Carlo's hands from underneath it's arms. His fur is a deep gray with emerald eyes big and round – most likely wondering why a revolver is shoved up against his stomach. "Megan." Carlo stares at me from behind the animal. "It's just a cat."

I know it wasn't his intentions, but no words have ever made me feel this stupid.

I lower the gun, defeated. "You're right. It's just a cat." I mutter with unintentional acid in my tone.

I sigh, allowing the sudden air of nonchalance to seep back into me with hesitance, lowering myself onto my knees. "Fancy seeing you here, eh?" I scratch behind it's ear, causing the feline to purr and slightly crane it's head into my hand in approval.

Revealing a collar.

I squint, staring hard at the crimson leather, then at the flattened piece of silver attached to it only be a small, rounded hoop. "The hell...?" I whisper, forgetting to control my language around the child. I take the silver into my hand, quirking a brow at the engraved letters that read MARY as if they will come to life and explain theirselves. "Carlo...this cat belongs to someone else."

"Someone else?" He clarifies, shifting the felines position so that he could freely pet its head. "Who?"

I'm surprised the cat didn't take off when it had the chance. After all, Carlo had had it in a death-like grip a mere few minutes ago. "I don't-"

The sound of a crack, as slight and insignificant as it may have seemed, silences me almost immediately. It sucks whatever 'calm' remained in the atmosphere and me, leaving both cold and tense. Carlo's lips are moving again, probably questioning what's wrong, but I don't catch a word. I stare down a dark alleywayy inbetween two vacant hotels, directly to the right of us, and at the figure standing perfectly still, it's every feature hidden and shrouded in darkness, but it is undeniably obvious that it is staring directly at Carlo and I.

My first instinct is to run, grab Carlo by the hand and drag him away from the scene, that figure that stands so fucking _motionless_ in the shadows. Let whatever resides in the darkness to have it's cat, if that is why it's here – for the stupid cat. But, does that mean the figure hidden by the shadows is Mary? No, impossible. Mary is – at least I hope so – a females name. Why would a masculine-looking person like that want a cat like this?

Then suddenly all of my thoughts shoot out of my right ear accept for one. _Person_. Person, person, person. Human, normal, fighter, **survivor**. There must be more. _Surely_, he must know more.

Before I can stop myself, I'm on my feet, feline out of Carlo's hands and into mine, and slowly approaching the alleyway. "Hey." I call reluctantly, my voice echoing unnervingly in the vast space. "I-Is this yours?" I feel Carlo tugging on the jean of my pants and I shrug him off, just as Dante would do.

He had always told me to appear sturdy in the eye of a cannibal. He had explained that they resembled animals in nearly every trait, one of the most important being how the prefer easy prey. If you come off tough and willing to fight, it comes across as a turn off on their part – like a lion being faced with a feisty ox.

But appearing strong is easier said than done. Even with the hope that has somehow ignited itself in my core, fueled by the chance that the man a mere few meters away from me could possibly human, my throat has rendered itself hopelessly dry, resembling my legs that were no more useful than blocks of cement glued to my hips.

I will them to move, unintentionally dropping the cat and taking a step forward into the darkness and closer to him, and he simultaneously takes a step back. I take another, and another, making a solid pattern of one foot in front of the other, but with my every movement he continues to recede. I begin to run, allowing Carlo to slip from my mind just for that one moment, chasing after the male that is just so _against_ my seeing him. My heart hammers it's way into my throat, making breathing difficult. My legs shake violently as my feet collide with the concrete harder, harder and faster, desperate to close the gap between him and I. But, when we both break out of the darkness and into the gray light of day, I trip on a particularly sharp upturned piece of concrete, scraping my shin and colliding with the ground.

I lay there, panting, listening intently to the sound of the heavy thud of his boots slow to a stop.

"..Who...Who are you?" I choke out, raising myself onto my elbows. When he doesn't reply, I crane my neck, facing him the best I could from my pathetic position.

Just as soon as my eyes found him, he vanished. But not before I caught a glimpse of platinum hair.

* * *

"Dante, look!"

Carlo shoves the feline in a groggy Dante's face, causing him to jump in surprise and accidentally knock the cat out of his hands and onto the floor where it quickly made way over to me, shielding itself behind my bruised leg. "I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't shove mother fucking animals in my face when I wake up, 'kay?"

Ouch. I can feel the offense radiating off of Carlo in waves. Dante must have, too, because when he speaks again his voice is just a bit softer when he sighs and says, "Let me see."

I seat myself on the edge of the mattress, handing him the feline. "Carlo named it Gordon."

"Gordon?" He repeats, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with one hand and suspending the cat in the air with another. He stares at it for a while with a grim expression, somehow managing to miss the blaringly obvious collar around it's neck – God, he must have been exhausted. "You do know we can't keep him right?" He looks past the feline and at Carlo. "It already has an owner, anyway." Oh. Nevermind.

"So?" Carlo whines from his position on the carpet. "The owner left him! Why can't we keep him?"

He stares Carlo down. "We don't have cat food – and _no_ we are not going to go get some," He adds, interrupting the boys unsaid suggestion. "And also because I said so."

"Well, why don't we give him normal food?" He protests in a small voice.

"Do you want it to get fat and die?" Carlo shakes his head no. "I thought so."

Carlo's features fall solemn, and I figure this a good time to step in. "Dante," I say calmly, retrieving the cat from his grasp. "don't you think it would be a _good_ thing to have a pet around? Carlo needs something to play with other than a toy car."

I have him there. Dante and I are often too busy for Carlo's childish games, and, lets face it, a toy car can't replace someone to play with, or anything for that matter. A feline really would be a nice addition. "Ugh, Megan-"

"Plus," I interrupt, hanging the kitten in his face. "There's no way you can reject this precious face."

He rolls his eyes and dismisses it with a wave of his hand, pulling off his shirt. "Where'd you find that thing, anyway?"

"Oh we-"

"Found him in the hallway." I interrupt Carlo.

Dante slides his arms into a new shirt, giving me a funny look. "Okay then," he says, slipping the shirt over his head. "'Sup with your leg?"

Shit. "I-I." Shit. Shit. Shit. "Scraped myself...while looking for a new pair of pants." I manage, watching him change.

"Ah," he says, clearly humoring me. "Oh what?"

_I hate you_, I think, racking my brain for another response. But, just as I'm about to consider both Carlo and I screwed and dead, an image pops into mind, blowing all of the tension from my thoughts, leaving everything clear and empty aside from one measly question. "Hey- Hey what does your brother look like?"

* * *

**Odd ending for a chapter? I know. /Feels accomplished/**

**Questions to be pondered:  
Who does the cat belong to?  
Who did Megan run into?  
DOES DANTE DREAM ABOUT FUNNY THINGS...LIKE CATS? **

**I can't tell you. Not yet at least. :3 Good day~**


	5. Chapter 5

**/Avoids glares/ Better late than never, I suppose. o A o**

**Ah, well. The first portion of this chapter is going to be written in third person, mostly because it would have verged impossible if told through Megan's point of view. I'm not a huge fan of chapters that switch p.o.v.s every five seconds, so I'm not going to make this a habit. ; A ; I'm going to be completely honest and say that I really don't know very much about Dante & Vergil's parents, whether they grew up with them or died beforehand. (I was never one for cut scenes, leave me be) So I apologize if anything contradicts something else in the game series, but that's pretty much all I can do. I wont morph this chapter into a piece of frustration just so that it'll fit into whatever knowledge you have of Devil May Cry.**

**So yeah. /Insert super sad emoticon here/**

* * *

By then Dante was one-hundred and ten percent sure that Megan had gone outside, but that wasn't exactly the key issue at current times. What on Earth has she – and he hoped she had enough sense not to drag Carlo along with her – come across that was so abnormal and frightening and _unrealistic_ it would rouse such an unusual and awkward question?

Actually, scratch the last part. Awkward the question was not – after all, it was bound to be asked at some point – but how Dante had reacted to this; shifting uncomfortably and picking at the mattress for reasons even he didn't understand.

There was just so damn much to describe and explain and rant about that one person he thoroughly recognized as his brother, even though her question was just so damned simple. "Well?" He heard Megan push, which barely surprised him. She never seemed to catch onto just how short-tempered he is, despite how many hints or clues he would so _generously_ provide for her.

But oh, appearance. Even Vergil's looks had infinite layers of dimensions to them, his every aspect reflecting a different memory of a different point in time. How could Dante possibly explain anything about him without droning on and on, end up telling Megan a whole fucking story about why his coat is blue, hopelessly confusing the girl's apparently one-tracked mind.

In that moment he had actually considered her spoiled for simply provoking such a topic. Was she really fortunate enough to not know the difficulty of speaking of a lost loved one? Or was she just so immoral that she just couldn't care _less _about his feelings on the conversation? Where _are _Megan's parents, anyway? He doubted she resembled millions of other children in the states who had lost their parents in fires or floods or simply by being eaten, which of course followed shortly by their passing in days, or if they're unfortunate, weeks later.

The only logical conclusion Dante could figure while fumbling with the flaps of his coat was that she had ran away, and sometime during her absence realized she had made a ridiculous mistake and lost her parents in a raving cannibal attack or by eating one another for food or committed suicide or whatever the fuck else could have possibly lead to the teen being rendered alone.

But, if that were true, was the sob story Megan had told him in the truck that one night a fraud..?

He can't say any of this, though. At the very best the female will only be offended, the worst being his assumptions were _incorrect_. He would never admit it, but Megan being by his side did restore some amount of balance to his being, to prove that maybe he isn't the last male on Earth. That Vergil may still be _alive_.

Truthfully, he really was clueless as to exactly what he _would _do if she walked out on him. What would he do with Carlo? Surely, he wouldn't want to put up with the man, it's his nature to come off as someone who really just couldn't give a shit less about you. He can't help it. He does care for his companions, and if he was sure about anything that night it was that they would _die _without his guidance.

And what about the damned cat? Dante had no clue what to make of it, really, so excuse him if he didn't see the use in an overweight cat following them around. What the _hell _has it been eating, anyway, and who is this _Mary?_ Just the damned things presence made him feel as if it were playing mind games with him, and he wasn't too fond of that fact. He hates mind games.

Dante sighed, running a hand through his hair rendered messy from slumber. What to_ say?_ He began rummaging through whatever memories he had left of his sibling, hoping for something signifying at least a hint of brotherly love. It really is sad how a good half of the images in his mental-slide-show were much too gruesome for him to even _imagine _describing to Megan. The kid would have nightmares for weeks. But finally, after a questionable amount of chin-rubs later, he had stumbled across a particular point in time that _may _have just been delicate enough for Megan's fragile mind. Even though it was a good ten years ago, which is most likely before Vergil had decided he was destined to bring the world doom, he could still pick up enough bits and pieces to formulate a relatively...normal (at least on his part) story to share with the younger. "Well...his hair has a lot more history than you'd think..." And so it began.

The words flooded from his lips so naturally it almost frightened him. For a memory so old, it was unmistakably vivid as every scene played out perfectly word for word, sentence for _sentence_. Nine-year-old Dante knew he was dead upon staring down at his brother – burnt to a crisp and twitching but still _alive_. Dante had tried hard not to dwell too much on the fact that their current dilemma was completely his fault, that he should have obeyed his mother whom thoroughly instructed not to play in the downpour during her absence.

Not that he was paying any _attention_...

Dante could have sworn his brother was dead upon practically dragging him into the bathroom and into the bathtub. The occasional choke and shiver was what proved Vergil alive as Dante blasted the younger sibling with the warm water of the shower head, desperately trying to rinse away the dirt and char that had practically coated his body.

Dante didn't realize it then, but through the runny mud caking his face Vergil was glaring at him. If he would have noticed, Dante probably would not have been so surprised when Vergil refused to let him rinse the car out of his hair – the char that made his hair stand at such a ridiculous fringe. Now, whether Vergil kept the look simply to remind Dante about how much trouble he had gotten into that day, or just because he liked(s) it, Dante doesn't know.

Finally, the rush of words died down. Dante's silence wasn't overtaken by a wave of awkward like he had brace himself for. Just silence, along with the inner debate on whether to tell Megan Vergil had broken all of the boy's fingers the following day. But, Megan, who was too preoccupied with watching Carlo stack his toys on a sleeping Gordon's back, didn't at all seem to mind. Even with her face as blank as a sheet of paper, Dante knew she was thinking hard.

Now he understands why Vergil preferred to fly solo. Half of the time Dante just saw Megan as a piece of frustration. As for Carlo – well Dante didn't know why he _was_ there...Maybe Dante just isn't cold-blooded enough to let Carlo die, like Vergil had done with Trish. His memory is a bit foggy given the fact that he is currently half-awake and the event happened so damn long ago, but he remembers staring hard at her – the panicking blond – through the thick layer of glass that had currently been protecting he and his brother from the approaching crowd of demons.

Dante knew something was wrong, that there was some level of cruelty in the thought of he and his brother being safely sheltered in behind the bullet-proof glass of the bank they had been fortunate enough to stumble across, but to leave one of Dante's closest friends vulnerable and helpless on the other side, banging furiously onto the glass she couldn't brake, calling the two of them ever nasty word she could brew up from her imagination.

The door was right there, _right there_, a mere few feet away from Dante's stone-cold body. But Vergil had thoroughly instructed not to touch it, that Trish was infected.

"He sounds a bit like my mom." Megan's word's were soft and low, almost completely inaudible to even Dante. But it was because of the fact that her words weren't undertoned with humor or frustration or sarcasm like they usually were that he bothered to hear her out. When his line of sight drifted over to her, he was almost caught in her iron gaze, sending a sharp line of tension around that man a holding him in it's grasp. "She never really seemed happy - or maybe she was but before I was born. I dunno', really." Then her gaze dropped to the mattress.

She's wrong. Vergil isn't exactly how most usually figure him to be; always frowning and sitting in a corner. Every now and then Dante could wriggle a smirk or sometimes even as much as a chuckle out of him, but that usually only occurred when he tripped or fell and hurt himself in some type or form of sadistic way.

Dante rolled his shoulders, as if trying to shake off the tension. "And what about your dad?"

"..Mom killed him."

* * *

**2:45 A.M.**

**Megan's P.O.V.**

So stiff.

I try my hardest not to dwell too much on the fact that the bandages wrapped around my swelling leg is nearly cutting off it's circulation.

The gash left behind from the concrete was more severe than I had expected – it wasn't until Dante suspiciously noted the practically gushing blood running down my shins and ankles had I noticed. I can almost hear his words striking me like knives, droning on about how idiotic my move had been as I stare down at the mended wound, pulsating and stiff and shoved up against the wall by Dante's broad, unmoving shoulder and leaving my left leg to slide into the puny space between the bed and peeling wall.

If you don't think this is uncomfortable, than your crazy.

I assume the window panel cold as I press my cheek against it, yawning and staring up at the sky. I can't even tell the difference anymore – between warm and cold, I mean. I can only assume the temperature by just how numb my fingers run and immobile my legs become.

I'm so tempted to stretch, to get some blood flowing into mt legs that are growing prickly from lack of blood flow, but I don't. The very thought of me accidentally kicking Dante in the face pertifys me enough to put up with the discomfort for a few more hours.

My breath slides against the window, condensing onto that glass that hardly hesitates to let the silver light of the moon pour inside – onto me, onto Dante who is knock out of planet Earth, onto Carlo who is curled up with Gordon on the carpet. I can't help but stare up at it – the moon – with a sense of longing. It's all that proves the sun still exists, bit is simply hiding from us. Just like Dad had said.

It's nice to know that at least the moon hasn't changed, that the huge circular object floating in the sky is the exact same one as the one Dad had spotted while he and I were playing in out front yard nearly a decade ago.

Now, I don't remember very much, but I assume that very event occurred when I was seven-ish, which was just a while after the human race began to steadily decrease. I remember just how cold it was, shivering and chasing after my Dad who was acting like such a doofus to make me laugh, just to make me further believe that everything was just as okay as he said it was. How oblivious was I.

I'm surprised cannibals haven't spotted us with how undeniably loud we were.

I remember glancing behind him when he pointed out what I thought was the brightest thing I have ever seen, given how accustomed I was to dim candle lights and the fact that I just didn't _remember_ the sun's gracious appearance, just in time to see my mother's face – pale and emotionless and staring flatly at us through the paneled window of the kitchen. Her hair seemed a violent mess, seeming even more frightening in the way the flickering candle light illuminated her every strand that seemed to jut out in every direction and angle and fringe.

Then she walked off, disappearing from the window and I honestly can't recall seeing her again that night.

"Y'know, the moon and the sun are close friends," Dad had said, snapping me from the ghost of a figure and over to him. I had almost forgotten he had a Texas drawl, I notice, recalling the way his blue eyes seemed to almost shine in the silver light. His blond hair was still rich at the time, unlike Mom's who's hair was already ridden wrinkled and gray. In comparison, Dad had almost an angelic look, but I suppose that isn't saying much. Mom resembled a dying rat. "And you know what the sun asked the moon to do?" I shook my head no and he continued in a deep godly voice, "'watch over my world until I get back.'" Bullshit.

"So the sun's still here?" I had asked, swiping my nose with the back of my sleeve.

I didn't notice it then, but he had hesitated. "...Yeah, and that moon's proof. Just keep crossin' your fingers." Then, as if he could lessen the tension I hadn't yet been able to notice at such an oblivious age, he patted my hair with an icy hand. "Dinner must be ready, come on."

Now, where he has brewed up that crap is beyond me. Probably Greek Mythology of some sort, I couldn't be half-assed to be completely honest. But if there is one thing I am sure of, it's that ten years is far more than enough time for something to make up it's mind, and the sun isn't returning.

Sometimes I really do ponder what drove my parents to have me. After all, what is the use of cursing an innocent child bringing them into this world? To die? To offer to cannibals as a sacrifice when cornered? To...to come up with a cure? No, I would never attempt such a risky feat. It's a challenge in itself to keep myself alive...but a child of my own...?

But then what does that make Carlo? Surely, he cannot just be another companion. He's a child, defenseless, weak, inexperienced. It seems as if he were ever to be harmed, my feeling responsible for it is inevitable. Like I'm responsible. A parent. But it wasn't me who brought him into this world, obviously he is someone else's. Probably another silly girl in her teens who wanted to experience sex before being eaten alive, leaving Dante and I – two people she most likely she doesn't even know – to care for her mistake. Involuntarily making ourselves the boy's guardians.

But no matter; at least he isn't a newborn. Oh, that would be hell. But the chances of me becoming pregnant – let alone falling in _love_ – is pretty slim. That is...unless Dante and I...

But that'll never happen. Even though I'm practically crushed against the man, he and I are just so distant he may as well be sleeping on the moon. No common interest shared, really, other than we both want to stay alive. The very though of us...kissing seemed awkward.

Not that he isn't attractive or anything. He is in his own way that some may even find awkward given how _raw_ his beauty and persona is. But we're barely friends, really. As a matter of fact, I truly believe he sometimes despises me.

I snap out of my thoughts upon hearing a rustle. The sound is faint, unnoticeable, possibly just a paper sliding across the concrete.

...With what wind?

I'm more alert now, scanning the hopefully empty streets like a hawk, taking in the totaled cars, the upturned gravel, the vacant buildings. None of which carry sounds as to the creator of the disturbance.

I cure in a tone that's barely audible, silently scolding myself for having such an overactive imagination.

Now if only Dante would scoot over so I can get some shut-eye.

* * *

**NOW I KNOW YOU ARE PROBABLY ANGRY. ;_;  
The next chapter should be out by TOMORROW, or if not the day after.**

**I promise. Promise. Promise. I tried hard to get it out today, but it would have been filled to the brim with errors and I'm sure you don't want that. :C**

**BY THE WAY I FOUND AN ABSOLUETLY PERFECT MEGAN ON WEHEARTIT LAST WEEK~**


	6. Chapter 6

******This is possibly the shortest chapter I have ever written in my lifetime. But, obviously, I'm not going to put myself through hell to make it longer. ; - ; That, and I wanted to finally get an update in, Jeez. Oh, and sorry about the whole me switching over to third-person in the middle of the chapter...a-again. _ I was backed into that corner for this chapter too.**

* * *

I stare back at myself through the dusty mirror on the night stand, twirling a pair of scissors in my hand. My vision drifts over to the corner that is chipped and cracking with age to see Dante, once again limp and limber and laying on his side, and reassuring myself that he's asleep.

"No use for this anymore," I whisper to myself, and through the thin sheet of gray spilling in through the window I place the conjunction of the two scissors against the very strands of hair leading to my neck.

It almost tickles as strands of hair rain down my arms and into my blouse, like a gentle shower of perfectly straight dark hair. My motions are quick but careful, not wanting to do as much as breathe too hard to awaken Dante, or even worse, Carlo – who is surprisingly cranky when tired. I had cut off a lot more than I had intended, I realize, staring down at the lengthy clumps of hair laying peacefully on the carpet. But it isn't until I look myself in the mirror do I realize just how drastic the change has been.

It isn't like I did anything wrong – the cut is actually more uniform than I had intended – but I guess it just feels...awkward not to have my seventeen-years-worth of hair drifting down my shoulder and back, no longer being able to twirl it as easily between my fingers like I'm attempting to now.

My vision slides back over to the mirror, and, through the dust that seems to almost shine in what I now recognize as light, through the dirt and crevices that have taken it upon themselves to ugly the glass, I stare hard at Dante for a moment.

At first, I thought I was seeing things, that I had just awakened myself a bit too early and needed to undergo sleep once more. But as I squint, through the crack that extends from the near centre of the bottom wooden panel and ending somewhere in between Dante's closed eyes, I realize my eyes have not deceived me, that there was some level of indifference to his hands after all.

Before I can stop myself, I'm at his bedside, carefully studying his left hand that is stretched out on the bland surface of the mattress.

It's just as I had thought. The hues of skin color on his hand carry a noticable change from the tip of his fingers to the middle of his last knuckle. Fading. Even through the strange glove-tan is practically as far from obvious as it could get, it is still the remains of sun-kissed skin.

And Dante has it.

The glove slides off his hand with ease, and for a moment, I just stare at the odd pattern of peach from his fingertips, to the almost porcelain of his palm, it's only flaws being the red blisters arising on his flesh – he'll have to stop with the stupid blade.

**(Flipping over to third person)**

Dante didn't realize how undeniably fat Gordon was until he head practically _thrown_ himself onto the man's face at the break of dawn. So, after a round of muffled screams, suffocation, and extreme face-mauling, Dante decided he despised what he now called the hideous _thing_.

"He isn't a thing." Megan says, raising the feline from it's position on the concrete and into her arms. "Gordon is a sensitive cat that needs to be loved."

He twitched. Dante had no idea when, but somewhere in between the time in which she had found the beast up until the moment he had almost gotten his face torn off, she had become fond of the thing. He wasn't exactly a fan of this given the fact that every time he heard the damned thing meow he had to resist the urge to staple it's paws to the ground...

He scoffs and stares grimly at the creature wrapped securely in the flaps of her jacket and arms. For a moment, as he runs his index finger down the stinging scratch Gordon _kindly_ left him this morning, he considers kicking the feline out of her grasp and blaming it on Carlo. Cruel, but chances are, he'll get away with it. Megan has the reflexes of a dead slug, and he strongly doubted she had enough affection towards the animal to trek her way to the roof of a building to retrieve the thing – which is, with Dante's deadly force and accuracy, where the thing would wind up.

The only good he could possibly see coming out of the creature is food. But unfortunately, Dante had a feeling Megan and Carlo would be the slightest bit unhappy with the idea of him roasting their 'baby' over an open flame.

"Aw, what's wrong, sweetheart? Is it too _heavy_?"

Megan dismissed the rude reference to the cat. "No." Dante thought her voice sounded a bit strained. "It just...keeps squirming."

"Then drop it."

"It'll get cold."

"He has five-hundreds pound of _fat_. He'll survive."

Megan only has enough time for one more protest before the grappling hook drives into her leg.

"**What's wrong,**

**sweetheart?****"**

One scream. That's all she's allowed before the blood-coated hooks grapple back onto the flesh of her shin, lodging itself in. Dante only has enough time to reach out a gloved hand and say her name before a reeling sound is heard, almost immediately followed by Megan being dragged, screaming and bloody and calling out to her companion, into a dark alleyway.

There's a whizzing sound and in a second an object that had once seemed like an ugly speck falling from the roof became a hideous claw-shaped mechanism with lengthy shards of metal for fingers hurtling towards Dante's abdomen, the dull claws rusted from blood wide open, as if desperately awaiting the taste of his flesh.

He darts out of the way, but not before the mechanism scrapes it way across his stomach, it's metal fingers sliding across one another and almost eliciting a metallic sound of disapproval, and shoots into the metal criss-crosses of the cart, scraping it's way into the metal criss-crosses of the cart and lodging itself in. Then the reeling is heard. Even if only for a second, Dante stands there confused and frustrated and dumbfounded and trying to figure out just what the _hell _was attacking him, but with his guns drawn and scanning the rooftops like a hawk he came up hopelessly empty handed aside from a stupid fucking wire dangling from the roof.

But as he zeros in on the ugly line that seemed splintered beyond repair and rigid in such an awkward angle it seemed as if it were almost straining on something, a thought finally clicks in his head just as the intensity of Carlo's cries onset onto his momentarily deaf ears. He cries out again and again, but Carlo has to say it several times for Dante to register that he was calling out to...not him, but _father_..?

He locates the boy just as the cart is being forced up onto the rigid concrete of the sidewalk, and just as Dante's about to order him to get the hell out, the boy screams in a tone so amplified it almost further disorients Dante's already lopsided thinking. "I can't move!"

He's beside him in seconds, desperately yanking at the wire dragging both Carlo and the cart and himself as the whole scene seems to move to the rhythm of Carlo's cries, "It hurts! It hurts!"

He doesn't realize how much his fingers are trembling until they close themselves around the barbed wire. He grits his teeth and grabs for a knife with his free hand, trying to bring a halt to the continuous reeling but to no avail.

"Daddyyy!" He hears Carlo call from behind him, but his voice is much clearer, more defined. Closer.

_Closer_.

He swallows hard and begins to saw. Blisters burst on his fingers as loose wire scrape and drive into them as he awkwardly drives the knife into the wire, back and forth back and forth. Something drives into his shoulder blade and with the faint throbbing sensation that surfaces he knows a knife has been driven into it. And even with the knowledge of how much of a bitch it'll hurt in the morning, all Dante would think was _'Thanks for the knife.'_

The cart drives into the building inches from his body, and gradually, the end of the cart that has a hook lodged into it's metal and _Carlo _begins to dip upward.

Dante tugs harder on the line, using his evident frustration to block the pain. Finally, he gets a groove, but the work is still pushing unbearable. With the screaming child being cranned up the side of the building and his Megan being dragged away and probably panicking and screaming and maybe even unconsious from the pain, he could have sworn he heard breathing. Not his - no, much to feminine. Softer, rushed. Megan's.

_Inhale, exhale_. He tries to shake the sound free of his mind, sawing of the last few strands of wire.

_Inhale, exhale_. With his fingers shaking and bloody and hurting he yanks Carlo free from the nest of barbed wire, but not before the damage has been done.

_Inhale, exhale._ It takes every ounce of will his in body to run in the opposite direction, to block out the suicide mission he so strongly wanted to follow through and save Megan. Sense overrides instinct and he darts deeper into the claustrophobic space between two buildings with a panting Carlo in his arms. He's cringing, just as Megan probably is, crippled over a knife that has been lodge into his chest moments after Dante tugged him free. But Dante couldn't focus enough to remove the damned thing, that if he stopped his compulsive running for even as much as a second he would wind up returning to her.

He hadn't been running long at all, but in a matter of moments his compulsive pattern of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other had become increasingly difficult. He was already panting, and, with just a few more steps, Carlo's weight had seemed to escalate from fifty-five to a hundred. His stamina was steadily decreasing, his every step seeming more painful than the one prior. Before long, his legs gave out under him and sending both he and Carlo to the ground.

_Silence_.

Something wet is seeping into his jeans and collar of his shirt, but it isn't until he saw Carlo standing – no, _lying_ before him, flat on his back and cringing in pain, was Dante able to process that he was flopped onto the concrete, feeling somewhat crushed by the blade sheathed on his back. He wills himself to move, but his arms didn't seem to care enough. They just lay limp by his sides, leaving him no choice but to focus on the cannibals who are giving joyous cries and firing their weapons into the sky. Celebrating dinner. Celebrating Megan.

* * *

**Ugh, that as more depressing than I had intended. Sorry. :c**

**But you can never have too much suspense...right? Right! So I hope this chapter wasn't TOO bad. I know I have a few things in there that I'm still now happy with, but for me to perfect all of it you all will be old with gray hair by the time I got this out. =_U**

**Good day~!**


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